Knuckerholeby Michael MinnisWorld War II was hard on the people of England, and harder on its children. But the war was nothing compared against the guest of honor hiding in the Knuckerhole on Whateley's property. An excellent tale of youthful terror by Michael Minnis. |
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Thirty-three Heinkel-111 bombers of KG21—Geschwader "Nibelungen"—pounded across the gray turbulence of the North Sea, immense dark green dragonflies each casting a crucifix shadow on the water below. In escort came twenty Bf-110 twin-engine fighters of Zerstorergeschwader 3, under command of Oberleutnant Karl Hohne. To the east was the thin fading blackish-green coastline of Nazi-occupied Denmark, from where they had come. England lay to the west – battered, sick old England, driven from the Continent that very summer of 1940, its army humiliated and its empire in disarray. A new order ruled now, young and full of violence. It had little patience for the Old World.
Gunther Leckschiedt was Hohne's best gunner. He had seen combat in Poland, Norway and France. His personal tally of enemy planes came to twelve. Just lately he had added what he had thought to be his first British plane – a Hawker Hurricane, shot down near Middlesborough. He considered himself lucky to have scored such a victory. The Bf-110, effective enough on the Continent, was too heavy and slow against the British planes, and already many of the "Zerstorers" had been shot down. Fortunately the bulk of the British fighters were further south, fiercely contesting the Luftwaffe over London.
Northumberland was the Germans' destination. Targets to be attacked included the city of Sunderland and Newcastle, an airfield, and two low-level radar stations.
Mile after mile of the white-crested North Sea slipped swiftly past, a dark convoluted emptiness of contentious waves. Spangled hexagons of sunlight telescoped into the Bf-110's angular canopy. Not far now, Leckscheidt thought. The Northumberland coast would soon come into view, the panoply of immense reddish-brown cliffs cut and gouged by the sea. The white horizon was empty. Small comfort, however. The Tommies would find them soon enough.
And they did find them, as Leckscheidt had feared, over Sunderland.
"Achtung, Spitfire!" he cried. Thirteen or fifteen of the British planes, coming in from eleven-o-clock high; he recognized the sloped contours and the brown-green leopard markings. Wait, there were more—Hawker Hurricanes, come to engage the lumbering Heinkels. Machineguns rattled and chattered. Brass casings clattered to the floor of the Bf-110. The sky seemed full of black darting enemy fighters, of the arcing vapor trails of a murderous ballet.
Leckschiedt's machinegun blazed at a Spitfire chasing his Bf-110. Sparks jumped about the Spitfire's fuselage, pieces flew off into the slipstream. The enemy plane shuddered under the impact and began to burn. Yet the Spitfire was firing as well—yellow flashes erupted from its wings—and the bullets from its eight guns walked across the Bf-110s muddy green fuselage to smash into one of the twin engines.
There was a terrific detonation on the starboard side of the Bf-110, a tremendous shower of sparks, black smoke and mangled metal. Leckschiedt looked to his right, where the Bf-110s engine was still running, though engulfed in orange flames—a burbling, stuttered squall that set his nerves on edge. The enemy plane, now a fireball, was already falling to the earth in an accelerating parabola. Inky smoke trailed behind it. The end of the road for him, Leckschiedt thought. Ours should be coming up shortly.
Hohne's calm, authoritative voice came over the interphone. They were losing altitude. Though the engine's prop had feathered, the fire was out of control. He ordered a bailout, and wished good luck to Leckschiedt and Thoma, the forward gunner. His clipped tone betrayed no emotion, no fear. Leckschiedt admired him for it. His own fear was such that he could barely speak—a prisoner of the English. How unreal the concept seemed. Would his letters still reach his family back in Kiel? Did the English allow such things?
One after the other, they tumbled out of the burning Bf-110, born into a maelstrom, the white silk afterbirth of their parachutes blooming behind them. Leckschiedt stared at the ground below, which was the color of curdled oatmeal, nearly treeless and bland. He guessed at his altitude: 2000 feet? 3000 feet? Who knew? The air battle continued to rage over Sunderland. Here and there another plane was struck down, sent in flames to the indifferent ground below. He felt oddly beyond it all, infinitely patient, a stained-glass saint high in the sky.
The wind scattered the three Germans far and wide over Bromley Moor, which lies northeast of Sunderland, and not far from the grim North Sea. Before long Leckschiedt had lost sight of Thoma and Hohne. This bothered him greatly...but at least the ground was clear. There were no trees or roofs to break against like a discarded toy; no petulantly placed fishponds or reservoirs in which to drown. The country, in fact, was moorland and quite deserted. In the realm of fantasy he had already made their daring escape back to the Fatherland. A midnight crossing of the sea in a stolen dinghy...a rendezvous with a U-boat...a triumphant homecoming, yes...and there would be excited eager girls and beaming dispatches, perhaps even the Iron Cross and the personal congratulations of the Fuhrer himself. Behold these three brave young men, Germany!
But there were none of these things.
Thoma and Hohne fell to the earth and were captured by an elderly English farmer armed with an old Lee-Enfield rifle. The old man was convinced that they were German paratroopers, not airmen, and that the Nazi invasion of his homeland had finally begun.
Leckschiedt fared rather worse.
He was not captured. He did not crash into one of the scrubby trees of the moor, to be suspended from branch and parachute cord like a mangled puppet. He was not shot—no one had seen him come down, it seemed. He did pass over a rude little cottage of fieldstones and thatched roof. Yet no one was in the yard staring up at him in astonishment, and from the chimney came no smoke. Like a ghost he drifted over a long, narrow pool of murky water, which steamed faintly in the sunlight.
Curious, he thought. A hot spring of some sort?
His landing was a soft tumble through a field of daylilies, primrose and Jerusalem sage. The parachute he quickly gathered in, like a shameful family secret. Under no circumstances was anything belonging to the Luftwaffe to fall into enemy hands.
Machine pistol in hand, he waded through the moor's wild garden. On all sides the country was flat, undulating slightly, a broad expanse of green and brown. The restless air tasted of sea salt.
Some distance away was the quiescent cottage, alone, apparently deserted. The tiny windows were dark. A washtub hung next to the whitewashed door. The cottage shimmered slightly, and he blinked, confused, until he realized that the pool was between he and it.
He skirted the pool, moving cautiously. Strange that it should be cold near its still waters, cold so that the fine hairs on his forearms and neck prickled. Granted, he was in northern England now, near the sea, where even August was more like April...but still...it was strange. Vapors curled on its opaque brownish surface, while the stones nearby were slick with something rather like congealed algae, stinking faintly of rotted fish. Leckschiedt made a face, wondering what could live in such water: tadpoles? Insect larvae? Bottom-feeding fish? Bacteria, at best, he figured.
He stooped near the pool's edge and touched a finger to one of the slimy stones, and then to the steaming cold water. That was when whatever lived there burst forth in sudden violence to take Gunther Leckschiedt
"Utter twaddle," Timothy Eden said, pushing his bike along the rutted dirt road.
"But Bobby here saw it," Christopher Abercrombie insisted, "didn't you, Bobby?"
Christopher's younger brother nodded solemnly. His eyes were wide, solemn, slightly magnified by thick spectacles.
Eden snorted in disgust. "Bollocks. Four-Eyes can't see 'is own hand in front of his face. 'e's always making up stuff to get attention. That's why Miss Elvesham makes the little deuce stand in that corner most of the time. It's cause 'e's bleedin' barmy, is what 'e is."
"Is not!" Christopher insisted, his thin freckled face slightly flushed. "That old bat Elvesham does it only to be mean to him! She doesn't fancy us Londoners one bit."
"Probably not," Eden said. He was from Northumberland. "But 'e could stand to keep 'is mouth shut, couldn't 'e? Christ's sake. Always going on about something. Nazi spies...U-boats...your batty Uncle Whateley...monsters...you think the little deuce would come to 'is senses once in a while. Now this crap about Jerry paratroopers coming down out of the sky..."
Eden shook his head sadly. More than once he had asked himself why he had taken on Chris Abercrombie and his little brother Robert as his wards. It was the money, of course, a few shillings at the end of the week, like any regular job. Eden—blond, sinewy and twelve—was the biggest boy at their little brick school. He kept the other Northumberland boys from beating up the two brothers.
The little Londoners, "The bomb babies" as he called them, were eleven and nine, respectively. He thought them rather poor specimens, especially little Robert with his thick glasses and girlish face. That Robert told outlandish stories helped his case not in the least, and no one liked him.
Chris had least had some sense in him. Eden's liking for Chris was bemused, half-serious, and had to do more with the War than anything. Chris had been through two air raids before his mother had seen fit to send him and his barmy little brother north to stay with Uncle Hadrian Whateley. Their father was even further north, in the Orkney Islands, training the Queen's soldiers.
Eden could scarcely imagine it: London burning! Chris spoke in wide-eyed awe of the wailing sirens, the lightbulb pop of the ack-ack guns, the sinister hum of the German bombers muttering over and over: Gonna getcha, gonna getcha. Once a bomb had fallen on the row of houses across Chris' side of the street, blowing in all the windows on the block. Mister Weems, who was a florist, had walked out as if he had meant merely to retrieve the paper...but his hair had been on fire. Eden had burst into horrified laughter. Chris had said, "It's not funny!" Then he had smirked and snorted himself.
"Didn't you see a Jerry paratrooper near Uncle Whateley's today?" Chris asked Robert rhetorically.
"I most certainly did," Robert answered. That was another thing about the little twit Eden disliked. He was always right. If he had seen a German paratrooper, he had seen a German paratrooper. If a "knucker" lived in the "knuckerhole" on his Uncle's land, well, it just did.
"'I most certainly did'," Eden replied in a mocking falsetto, and knocked Robert's school cap off for good measure.
"Stop that!" Chris said.
Robert retrieved his cap, dusting it off.
"'E's a git, you know," Eden said knowledgeably. "Completely crackers."
They walked on in silence toward the small cottage on the moor. Eden often walked the boys back to their batty Uncle's home from school. It earned him an extra six-pence. It was also to ward off any surprise attacks by the two Barker boys, that mangy progeny of a local sheep farmer and weekend drunk named Montgomery Barker. The two snot-sleeved little morons had it in for Chris and Four-Eyes. There was no sign of them today, which privately relieved Eden. The last encounter had degenerated from name-calling into rock throwing. The Barkers had only retired when the younger, named George, was clipped on the chin by a stone.
Yet Eden looked upon Hadrian Whateley's cottage with hardly less dislike. It squatted there, a stone toad with a crown of yellow-brown thatch. The small windows were unpleasantly like eyes. On one wall hung rusting farm tools: a pitchfork, a scythe, a washboard and tub. On the far side were the remains of a blunt bladed harrow, half-buried by green ivy. Not that Whateley farmed; he owned a curio shop in Sunderland, which he had titled, with rather strange humor, 'Inexplicable Occurrences' in elaborate Celtic lettering. No one knew much about the man, Eden included, other than that he was between forty and fifty years of age, was unmarried, had served in the Great War and now lived on a 4/11 pension plan and whatever meager profits his store made.
There were rumors and gossip, of course. The fact that the man was unmarried and seemingly content to remain that way was suspect. Even awful Monty Barker had a wife, albeit one lumpy as a sack of dirty linen, with a carp face and temperament to match. Nor did anyone ever come to visit Hadrian Whateley, except to deliver milk or the newspaper. The fact that he did have relatives was a surprise to all, perhaps even Hadrian himself, though he received the Abercrombies politely enough. He went straight home from work to the pub each day, except on the weekend. And he almost never became angry, unless he found someone too near the odd, steaming pool on his land.
Naturally, Eden had probed Chris for information on his uncle, but it had been more a back and forth battle of opinion. Was it true that he had killed people and sank their bodies in his pond? No. Billy Atkins says that he has the heads of German soldiers he killed at the Somme in jars in his tool shed. Bill Atkins is a liar. He'll say anything for a quid of gum. All right, then. Me mum says he's got a whole passel of nasty books in his attic, witch-books from old times! Well I think your mum has a whole passel of bats in her attic...
"So what 'appened to the paratrooper, then, Four-eyes?" Eden asked Robert. "'E grow wings and fly away?"
"No," the little boy said, "the knucker got him. It came out of the pool and grabbed him. It's big, but it's very quick."
"I see," Eden said doubtfully, "and when did you see it 'appen?"
"I didn't see it get him...but that's why he's gone. Uncle Whateley told me. He was in town buying medicine for me."
"You're barmy, you know that?" Eden asked, sounding almost conversational.
"I am not," Four-eyes said defiantly. "I'll prove it to you, too."
"Barmy, barmy, Four-eyes is a git. And if you call him barmy, he pitches a fit," Eden sang merrily. Chris tried not to laugh.
"I am not barmy!" Four-eyes yelled. His face went red. Then, without warning, he turned and tore off for the cottage, feet pummeling, book bag beating this way and that in his fury. "Not barmy, not barmy, not barmy!"
Somewhere a door slammed – it was the paint-peeling one to the tiny stone tool shed. Eden jumped and Chris muttered, "Christ, now I'm in for it."
"Oi!" yelled a tall, heavy-set man in a checkered flannel shirt and billed cap. He wiped his big, thick-knuckled hands in a dirty rag. "Bloody 'ell's all the yammerin' 'bout?"
Robert, suddenly quiet, went to the big man, who crouched, elbows on knees, so they were face to face. Eden could not hear what was being said, but he could guess what went between the two. Four-eyes gesticulated, Hadrian Whateley nodded, Four-eyes pointed at Chris and him, Uncle Hadrian wagged a finger in admonishment, said something, and made it clear that the boy should go inside and wait. Four-eyes stamped in frustration and went to the cottage door with the air of a doomed prisoner. Hadrian Whateley finished wiping his hands, stuffed the rag into his work pants pocket, and walked toward Chris and Eden.
"So...what's this 'bout me little nephew bein' barmy?"
At close quarters the man seemed large as a tree to the two boys, his folded arms like great brown boughs. Hadrian Whateley was in fact dark-skinned for a Northumberland man, so dark that once Monty Barker had called him a "Goddamned Celt!" Hadrian had merely laughed. He laughed at many things – his neighbors, the rumors about him, Monty Barker, Hitler and his Luftwaffe – as if he alone knew of a great and secret jest that made all else petty and foolish by comparison.
The boys remained silent. Uncle Hadrian stroked his short blinding white beard thoughtfully, appeared to consider the situation. His eyes were small and clear and of a very light blue.
"Well...Chris?"
Chris swallowed and stared at the ground. "Well, the air raid they had over Sunderland yesterday...Four—I mean, Robert was carrying on about seeing a Jerry yesterday, in a parachute, and that the Jerry got to close to the pond...and the knucker got him. That's what he said, anyway."
"I see," Uncle Hadrian replied, "I remember the air raid well enough. Don't know why 'itler fancies droppin' 'is bombs on bookstores and pubs, lately, but damned if Jerry didn't stove in the Bullseye...now I'll have to go somewhere else to get a pint.
"Oh, well. Now what's this 'bout a knucker grabbin' 'old of a Jerry?"
Uncle Hadrian's eyes lingered upon Eden.
"Well, sir," Eden said. "Robert says that you said the knucker got 'im. That's why the bobbies and the 'ome Guard can't find 'im anywhere. I frankly don't believe 'im. I mean, 'e's always makin' up things and getting' into trouble. Like about 'ow you're a wizard and all, and 'ave a scad of terrible old books, and..."
Eden trailed off, fearful that he said too much.
"I see...so I'm a wizard, eh? And a knucker lives in the old knuckerhole on me land, eh?"
The man was amused, not angry, and Eden felt even more foolish than before.
"You boys even know what a knucker is, then?"
"No, sir," they chorused in small voices.
"Aye, there's the rub. You're talkin' of things you don't even know. A knucker, you see, is what you Londoners might think of as a 'swamp dragon'. Except it's not quite a dragon, or a serpent, or an eel. It doesn't fly or breathe fire. No, sir. It keeps to its pool – its knuckerhole, if you will – and that pool is always cold in the summer, and it never freezes over in the winter, and it always steams. Usually it keeps to itself. It's a private beast. But sometimes it comes out looking for things. Perhaps a sheep to nibble on, or sometimes a man. Once I was told, when I was a boy like you, that long ago one such knucker did go abroad. In Sunderland they called it the Lambton Worm, and it lived near the River Wear. They said it came out and wrapped itself nine times around Worm Hill! Nine times! So they're nothing to fool with, lads!"
"Uncle Hadrian," Chris asked uneasily, "if that's true, then how big is the knucker that Robert claims lives in your pool?"
Uncle Hadrian squatted, so that he was nearly level with the boys. Elbows on knees, he tapped his stubby thumbs together, lips pressed together thoughtfully. Before long he had a reply: "Hmmm. Don't rightly know offhand. But I suppose...I suppose if one of Jerry's bombers got close enough, well, it could pluck it right out of the sky like a gooseberry.
"But you don't believe me, do you two?"
The boys squirmed uncomfortably. Eden finally spoke: "It's not that I don't believe you, sir. It's just that...well...these are modern times. Things like that don't happen anymore."
"Aye," the man said, rubbing his hairy chin. "You're right, after a fashion, lad. But it's not so much that things like that don't 'appen anymore, it's that they don't 'appen very often. The conditions 'ave to be right. Just so. Otherwise, nothing. I should know. I study these things. I'm what you might call something of an expert, aye? And we should be grateful that these things are so bloody particular in their tastes. Would you really wish to see the likes of this 'ere Master Knucker, or old St. Toad 'opping and crawling along, or that old nasty, the Black Goat of the Woods? Shouldn't think so..."
"But those things aren't real!" Eden protested, irritated by Hadrian Whateley's gentle teasing.
"Well, perhaps to you they aren't...but then you're only a lad."
Hadrian patted the boy on the head.
"Good enough," he said, more to himself than the boys. "Come along, then, Chris. I've got a chore for Robert and you: shelving some of my books at the shop. Fancy following us over, Master Eden?"
"Umm...I'm sorry, but I can't, sir. I've got chores of my own, back home, and I'm running late as it is...so I should be going. Good day, sir."
Sly amusement creased Hadrian Whateley's browned features. "All right, then. Just keep an eye out for those Barker boys, mind you – that Monty's been accusing me of sheep stealing, lately. Or Jerry paratroopers, for that matter.
"And leave that nasty old knuckerhole alone, too."
Eden nodded, mounted his wobbly, rust-stained bike, and began to pedal slowly away. Twice he cautiously looked back over his shoulder. The first time, Hadrian Whateley, one hand on his nephew's shoulder, smiled and waved. The second time, they were headed toward the toolshed, where old Hadrian kept his clapboard truck. Eden pretended to dawdle, working his way around ruts and puddles. Eventually he heard the truck cough and rumble into unwilling life. It passed him before long, bumping and swaying along the cart path, black as coal, trailed by a caul of dust. He caught a glimpse of Hadrian and Chris through the smeared, bleary windshield. Robert leaned out the window and made a face at Eden, who considered giving him the bird, and thought better of it.
"Bloody little bastard," he muttered, "Barmy as they come."
He pedaled slowly, watching the truck recede into the flat green spaces of Bromley Moor, on its way to Sunderland. Soon it was no bigger than his hand. Then it was no bigger than a housefly. The rich petrol stink of its passage was gone. The dust drifted and settled, returning to the soil. When he was sure Hadrian and his nephews were gone, he turned his bike about and, pedaling much more quickly, rode back to the cottage and its strange pool.
It certainly looked odd enough to Eden, that much he conceded. The brownish-green water steamed like one of his mother's foot baths: a faint shimmer in the air that made the opposite bank hazy and indistinct. Slimed stones clustered on its banks like mussels. Eden thought it queer that the pool should be so barren. There were no cattails, no watercress, no lily pads, no plant life to speak of whatsoever. Not even clumped, gnat-ridden algae. And that was another thing—there were no insects. There was no life. No dragonflies darted above the water like airborne jewels, no hidden frogs squeaked in the reeds. Nothing. The pool steamed, and that was all.
No. That was not all. It was noticeably, unpleasantly cooler near the water, the faint cloaking chill of limestone caves, the breath of wet November afternoons. It was like a draft, really, secret yet pervasive, that touched to the bones and left the flesh creeping. He rubbed his forearms uneasily. He was already late, and there would be hell to pay when he got home...but this matter must be straightened out first.
"It's just a stupid old smelly pond, is all," he whispered.
The pool lay still. Nothing burst forth from the water to seize him. The vapors unfolded and twisted. Summoning his entire reserve of courage, born of twelve years, Eden dredged up the foulest word he could find.
"It's a fucking stupid old smelly pond, as a matter of fact."
The steaming, chilly waters offered no rebuttal.
"It's just a sulphur pool. That's why it steams all the time, and that's why nothing lives in it, because the water's poison."
But sulfur stinks like rotten eggs. This pond doesn't smell like that. It smells more like dead fish, but not strongly.
He cast about for a stone, and found one. It felt solid in his hand, heavy, somehow right. No longer a nervous little boy, now he was a force to be reckoned with. If there was something in there—and there wasn't, he told himself—he would roust it with a stone. Then he would give the back of Four-eyes' head a good smack for babbling on about knuckerholes and other nonsense.
He threw the stone. It struck the water with a greasy glottal plop and splash, and the unwholesome sound sent a visceral shudder through Eden. It was as if the pool had swallowed the stone. The water itself was of a curiously gelatinous consistency, more fragile wet membrane than liquid, it seemed...indeed, almost mercurial in character. A frightful vision rose in his mind: the water humping up in a shapeless brown-green hummock to see who or what had disturbed it. Eden swallowed, told himself not to be a silly baby like Robert Abercrombie.
Eden picked up another stone.
"It's just a stupid old pond. There's nothing in it."
He threw it into the opaque water. Again, the disgusting, sloppy splash and splatter that made him cringe. But nothing happened. No, wait. Something was happening. It seemed to be growing colder near the pool, a creeping chill, like frost spreading across a windowpane. Eden swallowed and fetched a third rock, but hesitated to throw it. Oh, come now. He was acting like a scared little schoolgirl. It was time to prove himself. He threw the third stone especially hard, and it struck the water with a mighty rippling splash. Concentric circles spread outward to the slimed shore. Eden dusted his hands on his pants, satisfied that he had made his point. There! Let old Hadrian Whateley put that in his pipe and smoke it!
He had picked up his bike and begun walking back through the Jerusalem sage toward the cart path, whistling 'Tipperary', when he heard something from behind him that caused his throat to close like a fist. It was the sound of bubbling, coming from the water. He told himself that it was the stone that had did it; it had disturbed the bottom-muck, releasing gas. Very slowly he looked over his shoulder, his knuckles white upon his bike's handlebars. Filmed bubbles were rising to the surface, in intermittent bursts. They broke and popped and palpitated wetly.
Eden's tongue nervously touched his lips. The bubbling subsided. Then it began again, closer to the stony shore, this time, a suggestion of stealthy, calculating movement. Not daring to look away, Eden began to push his bike quickly up the gentle slope. The bubbling ceased. Desperate now, he clumsily hopped upon his bike and began to pedal. The bike wobbled and squealed and pitched from one side to the other upon the uneven ground. He was dimly aware of someone moaning, faintly, and realized it was himself. Then, from behind, came a slap and splash, as if a large fish had thrown itself clear of the water. Eden uttered a strangled cry of terror and made for the rutted, dusty, blessedly mundane cart path, pedaling furiously. And when he saw something white and struggling in a ditch alongside him, he yelled again and soon exceeded even this pace.
The lamb was trapped in a muddy gully bordering Monty Barker's land, hemmed in on three sides by thorns and bramble. It was wobble-legged and mud-spattered, and hardly several hours old, bleating and terrified. Earlier that day the Barker boys had been sent out by their father to drive the sheep upland, "but you'd better bloody well make sure you keep them away from that bastard Whateley's place, or I'll take a strop to you both!" The boys had sullenly nodded and grimly set about their thankless task.
Eventually mischief got the better of the boys. They had decided that the sheep were rather too slow and preoccupied, like wooly old folk disinclined to hurry. The sheep cropped grass, bleated, milled, blundered into one another, and made little progress. There had been a dog—Chauncey—to herd them, but Monty Barker had come home drunk one night and accidentally run over the animal as it lay sleeping near the house. The work was left to George and his older brother, Malcolm.
Each boy was armed with a stick. They were both of a cruel, almost instinctively feral mind, and could sense each other's moods and desires. Words were largely unnecessary. All that was needed was a knowing look, a smirk, and...fission. When Malcolm had smacked a sheep across the rump with his branch, George knew he was to follow suit, and he poked another sheep hard in the ribs. The sheep, confused, blundered into each other. The boys had begun to yell then, cursing and laughing and waving their arms. Any sheep that did not join the headlong clumsy flight of its brethren was struck on the backside or rudely jabbed. The persecuted flock bumbled uphill, bleating miserably, a wooly cloud of panic and rolling eyes. The boys, overexcited, drove them this way and that. Finally, several of the sheep blundered straight into thorny gully that marked the edge of Monty Barker' land. After much confusion and clumsy scrambling, they had managed to escape the mud and brambles and rejoin the flock. The lamb that had witlessly followed them in was not so lucky.
George and Malcolm's joyful savagery had cooled upon discovering what had happened. Try as they might, they could not find the missing lamb, though it bleated piteously, and the thorns sorely scratched them. The petulant mud even sucked one of George's shoes off . "Oh, now you've done it, you arse!" Malcolm exclaimed, in a near ecstasy of fear. Monty Barker was not a man of means, and shoes were not cheap. "You'll surely get a beating now!"
They could not decide what to do: should they continue to look for the lamb? And if they found it, what then? Perhaps they should just leave it. To risk losing more shoes was unthinkable. But what if their father heard it bleating? If they found it, they could kill it with stones. No, Malcolm decided. That would take too long. Father would get suspicious. They had finally elected to leave the lamb to its fate, whatever that might be.
"It's down in there," Eden said, pointing to the bramble-choked gully. "That's where I saw it, riding back.
He felt rather foolish. A day had passed, and here he was playing the part of Four-eyes Abercrombie, who saw fairies and ghosts and knuckers. Christopher and Robert squinted into the leafy canopy, the older boy poking cautiously with a stick. None of them liked being this close to Barker property, since Monty thought nearly everyone a thief or poacher. Chris rustled the sumac and ivy. Nothing happened.
"I don't think anything's down there, at least now."
Four-eyes said with the air of a tiny magistrate, "I believe you, Tim."
"Oh, that's wonderful," Eden said. "The barmy bomb baby is on my side. Who next? 'itler?"
Chris squatted, peering into the shadows. Robert looked over his shoulder.
"What the deuce did it look like, old boy?" Chris asked.
"'ell...it was white, but dirty, and it was thrashing all about, making this rustling, crackling noise. I didn't get a real good look at it."
Chris smirked at his younger brother. Eden swallowed a lump of anger, contemplated throwing the Londoner into the ditch with the white thing. They had best understand that he didn't stand for that sort of thing.
"You think it's funny?" Eden asked.
"Well, no," Chris replied, returning to his explorations. "It's just odd to see you carrying on like this, like Robert here."
"Fine. Would you like to go in 'ead first and 'ave a look at it, then?"
Chris stood and stared evenly at Eden, his lips pressed tightly.
"Funny. Seems like you're the one scared to go in there."
"Like 'ell I am!" Eden said, giving the boy a rough push. Eden blinked in dismayed surprise when Chris shoved him back.
"Don't push me, you sod!"
There was a tense momentary standoff—the two boys glaring at each other, angry yet reluctant to act.
"I'll go in and find it," Four-eyes said, "I'm not afraid of things like that. Besides, I'm small enough to fit down there."
Relief and acute embarrassment overcame the two other boys. The dispute hung shamefully in the still summer air, and they looked away, suddenly awkward, their feelings like disarranged clothing.
Eden reasserted his former position. "You probably won't even see it if it is there."
But the youngest of the three boys was already negotiating the shallow slope down into the gully, moving in a series of half-hops, half-steps. Christopher warned him not to lose his shoes in the drying, algae-clotted muck. Robert disappeared from view. Only the occasional stealthy rustle of leaves and branches gave him away, and Eden became nervous, chewing on his lower lip. The memory of the knuckerhole, with its horrid suggestion of squirming life just below its opaque surface, was fresh in his mind.
"Ow!" Robert exclaimed, startling them. "There's thorns down here!"
"Damn it, Robert, don't make so much noise!" Christopher hissed. "You want Monty Barker to come out here and tan your hide?"
The crackle, rustle, and snap of undergrowth resumed, headed further up the gully. Eden and Chris followed, both keeping a wary eye on the pastures beyond. But the stubbled green fields were empty of sheep. Neither Monty Barker nor his trouble-making progeny were to be seen. The grassy sides of the gully occasionally revealed, like a second older skin, patches of weather-darkened mortared brick laid in the last century. Crickets creaked in hidden places, growing silent at their approach.
"See anything?" Eden asked.
There was a pause. "No," came Four-eyes reply.
"Maybe you'd better get on out of there," Chris suggested.
"Just wait...hold on! I think I see something!"
"Come on, then, Robert—"
There was a sudden scuffling, an explosion of movement among the brambles and leaves and litter of the gully. Eden's heart constricted in panic when he saw it again, the white thing, thrashing about the undergrowth and weeds like a blind thing. But from it came a sound wholly at odds with its ominous nature—a shrill, panicky bleating, the feeble cry of a small animal. Then Four-eyes, flushed and scratched by thorns, had it in his arms—a lamb, exhausted and matted with filth and cockleburs and last year's dead leaves. The small animal kicked and protested with little real vigor or force. Four-eyes stumbled up slope. Eden and Christopher helped him up out of the gully. The lamb smelled quite awfully, half-soaked as it was with stagnant water and muck, its rump caked with feces. Upon discovering this, the boys' sympathy evaporated and Robert quickly set it down, all three making faces, pinching noses and waving hands. The lamb stumbled and collapsed in a pile of spindly legs.
"Christ, what a stink," Christopher said.
"Some monster," Eden said, and surprised himself by laughing. The two brothers paused momentarily, and seeing that it was safe, also snickered. Four-eyes pulled burrs from the sleeve of his shirt, and sucked on a scratched hand.
"Probably belongs to the Barkers," Eden said, when the merriment had subsided.
"Shouldn't we give it back to them?" Four-eyes asked.
"Course not!" Eden replied, indignant, remembering his usual relationship with the younger boy. "That bastard Monty would say that we stole it, and then there'll be 'ell to pay. Besides, we might run into George and Mal, and I don't want another rock fight. I almost got clipped last time, as it was..."
"So what do we do with it?" Four-eyes asked. The lamb had risen again, unsteadily. They watched it wobble and stumble about with interest. Christopher prodded it with his stick and it fell with a thin bleat. Sudden inspiration struck Eden, and he smiled, becoming almost handsome.
"I 'ave an idea."
Sneaking out of his house proved the least of Eden's troubles that night. He knew the particulars of his home, which boards squealed and which remained silent when trod upon, how to climb the trellis that bordered his window. A sliver of moon was out, and it cast a bluish glow over the landscape. A multitude of cold stars was gathered in the black vault of its court. The wind sighed in the nearby birch trees, a papery rattling of leaves. From the darkness came a sly, rusty squeal that made his skin crawl with memories of ghosts and childhood haunts, and then he realized his mother had neglected to shut the gate.
He scolded himself, and retrieved his battle-worn bicycle. Over one shoulder he had slung a canvas bag. Inside were a flashlight, a length of rope, a large metal spike, and a hammer. The bag weighed heavily on Eden's back and occasionally clanked, sending him into a paroxysm of silent fear. Thankfully his mother was a sound sleeper.
The going was not as difficult as he had anticipated. In the wan moonlight, the twin lines of the cart path stood in ghostly contrast to the flat dark moor. Night insects and tiny frogs went through their familiar monotonous scales; but out here, it was a cacophony of notes that made his skin crawl when he listened too closely. The few scrub trees of the moor likewise occasionally took shapes he disliked—here a humped thing, there something tall and gaunt and skeletal. He felt very small and alone. He passed a whitewashed sign, pointing southeast. SUNDERLAND, it pointed. He thought it looked rather like a bony finger, and pushed the idea from his mind.
Instead, he pondered what they were doing tonight, what it was that they were out to prove. If nothing happened, then that was that. Four-eyes Abercrombie would remain barmy, crackers, a sod, the bomb baby forever making up stories, and that would be fine. But...if something did happen, then what? Was it to be kept secret, or should they tell someone? But whom? Old Hadrian Whateley? Their mothers? The House of Commons?
"We'll just keep it secret, then," Eden muttered to himself.
The closer he came to Whateley's cottage, the more his reluctance grew. The old man was no one to cross; even that souse Monty Barker knew not to antagonize him too much.
Eden's mother disapproved of his association with the Abercrombies solely on the grounds that they were related to Whateley. But with her husband serving with the Royal Navy in the Atlantic, she could not enforce her wishes. Hadrian Whateley had always sat alone at the Bullseye, but for a glass of his favorite beer and the local daily, or sometimes one of his moldering old books. Seemingly everybody had been accused of being to his odd shop, and yet no one would admit to it. He always had the last say in this matter, as he did any matter. Shopkeepers made no small talk with him. Children abandoned their street games at his approach. Mothers surreptitiously stared at him from slightly parted curtains. Perhaps an old woman might give him the evil eye, or a heartsick young girl might tremblingly request a love potion, but that was all. He was a warlock, and not to be slighted or crossed. After all, he was said to keep the heads of the Germans—
That's enough of that!
The Whateley cottage was a black shape against the deep blue of the night sky. Eden slowed, dismounted his bicycle. The darkness pressed close and the wind tickled the fine hairs of his forearms. Yet there was something else in the air, taut and tense, watchful, and he was reluctant to venture out under the cold stare of the stars. Instead he cupped a hand to his mouth, and rather unconvincingly imitated the call of an owl.
There was a reply—it sounded like Four-eyes, somewhere in the gloom. Eden did not want to use the flashlight unless absolutely necessary, so he guided himself and his bicycle as best as he could toward the pool, which was still as a mirror, and beaded with the reflections of stars and the space beyond. It was as if the void itself, and not water, lay at his feet. Wisps of steam hung over its surface like formless phantoms, and he was careful not to draw too close. He startled and nearly dropped his bicycle when he heard a sudden sound. Then he realized it was the lamb, carried by Christopher.
They set about their work without conversation. Four-eyes was given the flashlight and told to stand guard. Eden produced hammer, spike, and rope. The rope they tied about the lamb's throat and the spike. With Four-eyes providing light, Eden began to drive the spike into the ground. But the first stroke produced a painfully ringing note.
"Here, use this," Chris said, folding the bag over the spike.
It was weird, lonely work—the muffled thumps of the hammer striking home, the occasional witless bleat of the lamb, the whine and croon of the wind from off the moors. Every so often Eden would glance at the knuckerhole, waiting for something to happen...but nothing did. The pool might as well have been a cunningly crafted painting.
When they were satisfied that the spike was firmly in place, Christopher parceled out several stones between himself and Eden. They walked toward the fishy-smelling pool. The lamb, confused, tried to follow and was brought up short by the rope. Eden swallowed nervously. He did not want to throw the first stone; he did not want to throw any stones now. The wind had risen, rushing like a wicked hunting thing through the twisted moor trees. He was more than half-ready to call the whole thing off, let the lamb go, and return home. But he couldn't do that—he was the toughest boy in school.
Christopher threw the first stone. It struck the water and the stars flickered and melted, rippling outward. The lamb bleated, tugging at its rope. Chris threw a second stone. There were no bubbles. The air did not cool. Nothing. Eden, now anxious, threw a stone and winced at the sound it made, that awful slap.
"Sure does stink, doesn't it?" Chris asked.
Slap! Went another stone. Eden shuddered at the noise.
"Must be full of weeds or something...did you really see bubbles and all that?"
"Yes," Eden replied, reluctantly. He waited a moment, and threw one of his stones. Smack!
He wondered if the sludgy sound disgusted Chris as much as it did him. It was the slaughterhouse sound of violated flesh. He thought of gutted decapitated carcasses, animal and fish, of eyes dull with death. He thought of gutters and runnels through which the blood sluiced, hot and stinking of copper...yes, of copper...and silver, and sometimes gold, and sometimes stone. Stone upon which great reptiles trod...solidified Cambrian mud-rock tattooed with the hieroglyph trails of trilobites and nautiloids...blood for a great, unnamable thing...
From the center of the knuckerhole bubbling erupted, a short burst that quickly subsided.
"Jesus Christ!" Christopher muttered.
"Wait...don't throw any more stones," Eden whispered. "Four-eyes...douse the light."
They waited in almost complete darkness, and silence as well. The night creatures had suddenly ceased to creak and scrape and trill. Only the lamb dared disturb the waiting quiet.
The roiling bubbles emerged again, opaque, bursting almost as rapidly as they formed. Some were as big as a man's head. Some were white or gray, while others were sickly iridescent with poisonous colors, like an oil slick. They rose in a thick, frothing, churning column. The knuckerhole seemed to be boiling, a pool of acid that seethed and fumed. The air cooled, and cooled again. Eden, terrified, began to back away, certain now he hovered at the edge of something great and terrible, that something stood at a door and wanted very, very much to find its way in...
"Come on!" he hissed. He pulled Christopher and Four-eyes roughly away. Four-eyes stumbled and nearly fell. Christopher protested, and Eden ignored him. Once again the lamb was thwarted in its attempt to follow, and now pulled at its rope in blind panic. The fishy odor was an appalling, almost tangible stench now, rubbish-fire rottenness that Eden could taste in the back of his throat. The boys ran to a nearby low hillock thick with Queen Anne's lace, where they threw themselves down, panting and wild-eyed. They could have run further, much further...but some inner sense warned them of the futility of flight. Hope, however faint, lay in hiding and silence.
The geyser of bubbles subsided, but Eden knew it was not over yet. A will vastly greater than their own pressed upon mind and consciousness. Beneath its weight, they were no more than grubs, or protozoa, or atoms, but it was hideously aware of everything, of all things, it seemed. It jealously coveted that which it could not now possess, and burned like an alien star with incomprehensible rage and lust.
"Look!" Four-eyes Abercrombie cried.
It shot out of the black water, upward, like a rocket, in a tremendous explosive spray. It was the knucker, slimed and sinuous and purple-green, seemingly yards long. Up into the night sky it rose, to an impossible height...and down it came as inertia gave way to gravity. It struck the ground with a thunderous rolling slap. Like a serpent, it had no legs. Nor did it have a belly, from what he could see. It glistened wetly in the moonlight, its bulk shifted and crept like some vast earthworm, groping through the weeds. Tiny squirming things crawled in the muck of its hide. The thought that it might be blind sickened Eden.
"I'm going to get a better look," Four-eyes muttered.
Eden slapped the flashlight away from the little boy. "You want to get us killed, you fucking fool?"
"I think it's looking for us," Christopher whispered. "Oh my God, I think it's looking—"
"Shut up!"
It did seem to be searching for something. Eden was dreadfully certain of that much. With dull shock he registered the size of the thing before them, and then realized that was not all of it. Toward the pool, it bulked larger and larger, until it was as thick as an oak tree, where it disappeared beneath the water. He recalled the legend of Loch Ness and Nessie, and of the dragon and St. George. He recalled old Whateley's tale of the Lambton Worm, and thought this thing, this knucker, more than capable of wrapping itself nine times around any hill.
Yet something was amiss.
Eden realized what it was when the knucker discovered the terrified lamb, slid the end of itself around the wailing little thing, and pulled it and the metal spike out of the earth with brutal force. The knucker was completely headless. It was neither a worm, nor a dragon, or a knucker at all.
"It's a tentacle," Eden said simply. "Like on a squid or an octopus..."
"Oh, no," Four-eyes whispered, close to tears. "Oh this isn't right at all."
With frightful speed the grisly tentacle slid back into the water. The lamb, its neck broken, flopped bonelessly over the smooth stones, gripped by the merest tip of something vast and monstrous. Then it, too, was gone, with a slopping chuckle. Ripples fanned outward with deceptive serenity. The indifferent stars once again gazed upon themselves in a black smoking mirror.
Robert was crying now, a small utterly hopeless sound in the towering vault of the night. Eden feared to move. His limbs had turned to wet straw, his hands had taken root in the soil.
"Let's go. Come on, let's go," Christopher chanted breathlessly. He tugged on Eden's shirt.
"What the bloody fuck are you crying about?" Eden snarled at Four-eyes, terror turned to rage. He shook the little boy, bringing even more tears. "You're the barmy little bastard who got us into this mess, with your God damned carrying on and all! You knew about the damned thing! So what the bloody 'ell are you snot-nosing about?"
"But—it's—it's awful!" Four-eyes sobbed. "It's worse than I ever imagined! And it isn't gone yet! It's still here...can't you feel it?"
Eden released the little boy, who rubbed his arms and wept miserably. Four-eyes was right. Whatever it was, it was still among them. The lamb was a mere trifle, a passing curiosity. Now the crushing weight of its will was bent further outward, elsewhere, toward them, toward all. Eden sensed it, knew that others far away must be aware of something terribly wrong—dreams souring...sleepers suddenly awake and at their windows, afraid...oil lamps flickering into life...dogs barking frantically. Fear of something unknown, rising like dark water to their doorsteps.
"Chris," Eden whispered, hardly daring to break the stillness. "You and Robert best be 'eading off, quick-like. I think it's going to try something. I want to see what. Leave the flashlight."
"Eden—"
"Just do as I say."
The two boys moved off through the underbrush. Eden was left alone with the thing in the pool.
Carefully he rose to his feet. The water was bubbling again, and his skin began to creep and crawl. The filthy water churned into grayish-yellow mad-dog froth. Eden began to back away. The stench made him cough and gag. A shape, of much greater bulk than the tentacle, began to emerge from the water, like the rotted hulk of a long-dead ship. It was a hillock, towering twice the height of a man. Water spilled down it in chuckling streams. It was crusted with wart-like protrusions and polyp-like growths, all the color of sea-slime and vomit, the slick surface pouched and seamed with ancient corruption.
Eden shined the flashlight upon it. Tiny white things crawled over the hideous bulk, some many-legged, some legless.
Then, it split, and a nauseous membrane slid open, and the night filled with ghastly dead phosphorescent light, the luminous glow of phantom things at the bottom of the sea.
Eden screamed and fled. The flashlight lay in the weeds, forgotten, its own faint light lost in the weird glow of that immense eye, which was of flowing black and liquid gold, malignantly beautiful and utterly alien in its grotesque armored socket. It saw everything, and through everything, and things that only it could perceive—the Lake of Hali, the dim iridescent coagulation of Yog-Sothoth, the howling void of outer space. A tiny white grub scurried before it. It watched the thing with mild interest, until it was gone. After a time, its fell light died, and the membrane slid back over the shifting black and gold surface. The eye rolled shut. It began to submerge again, but not before a small tentacle—hardly a feeler—stole forth to take the curious glowing thing with it.
Eden could not find Christopher or Robert. He stumbled through the void of nightmare, alone, whimpering, unbelieving. It—whatever it was—was gone now, and an erratic lashing wind filled the psychic vacuum of its departure, beating about his face and ears. Jerusalem sage and Queen Anne's lace bowed before it. Scrub pine creaked and squealed, birch leaves seethed in its grasp. He tripped over a root, stumbled, and ran witlessly onward. The faint outline of Hadrian Whateley's cottage traced itself against the starry sky. A muted glow came from within, the amber presence of an oil lamp.
Eden ran toward the light.
The crickets and frogs had resumed their mocking music. There were other sounds, too: the far-off barks and howling of frightened dogs. Bromley Moor was fitfully awake, stirring out of a feverish dream.
Eden, exhausted, stumbled toward the whitewashed door. That it should open surprised him, and that Hadrian Whateley's nightshirt-wearing bulk should fill the doorway filled him with dread. In one hand he held a guttering candle. In the wan glow his eyes were shadowy caves beneath gray cliff-like brows. Curly gray hair protruded from the v-neck of his nightshirt. His expression was neither kindly nor sympathetic.
"The bloody 'ell's all this racket about?" he asked.
Eden pulled up short, checking himself.
"Chris and Robert and I—there is something in the pool—it's 'uge—it took one of Monty Barker's lambs and that's when I told Chris and Four-eyes to run and—"
"'Old on, there's a good chap," Whateley said, and clapped Eden on the shoulder. "Got a bit of a scare, eh? Well, that explains why Christopher and Robert came pounding in and ran upstairs like the Devil was after 'em...which, in a way, 'e was...but enough of that. Now come along. Come inside. I'll put a spot of tea on, eh? Then we'll talk this over, shall we?"
Benumbed, too shaken to refuse, Eden merely nodded and Whateley coaxed him inside. The man led him into a small, rude kitchen. An oil lamp sat on a rough table of green-painted planks, filling the room with a heavy, waxy scent. A black stove from the last century stood in a corner. The walls were lined with shelves, and brimmed with things mundane and strange. Powdered milk. A soup tureen. A small silent polished radio. Canned bully beef. Tins of jam. A huge rolling pin. A tiny empty bottle of something declaring itself to be VENO'S TRENCH COUGH MEDICINE stood next to a tin of Keating's Delousing Powder. There were other things, too, that disturbed Eden. A German steel helmet hung upon a wall. A frog-like gas mask stared blankly at him: it served as a bookend for several thick rotting books that smelled too much like the hideous pool. Whateley put a copper kettle on the stove, humming quietly to himself. Outside, the wind rushed and raved.
"'ave a seat, lad," he said. "In for a bit of a blow, tonight, eh?"
Eden nodded contritely, and Whateley chuckled.
Whateley seated himself. "Don't you be worryin' about me nephews now. I sent them to bed. Gave them each a swat on the seat, though, to teach them to listen to their elders. Now I'm not going to do the same to you, but you'll need a lesson, all the same."
"Mister Whateley, sir," Eden asked, and nearly faltered under the man's hard stare. "I'm...I'm sorry."
Whateley's expression was even and remote. "You 'ave any idea what is in that pool, lad?"
"No, sir."
A sour smirk creased Whateley's features. "Well, then, perhaps I should tell you. First thing...it's no pool. Well, it is and it isn't. It's more a hole than anything, even though there's water and stones and all. It seems big to you and me, of course. But to the old fellow on the other side, it isn't big at all. It's quite small, as a matter of fact. A keyhole, really. Now imagine you're this big old fellow on the other side of this keyhole 'ere. Imagine you're locked up in this 'ere dark, dark room day after day, year after year, with nothing to do but lie there and think. Wouldn't you want a peek now and then to see what was 'appening outside?"
"...yes..."
"Of course. Now suppose you could reach outside once in a while and grab something? Wouldn't your curiousity get the better of you? And 'ell, I suppose 'e wants to get on with 'is vittles once in a while, right? Wouldn't you?"
"...yes, but..."
"But what? 'e's a proper neighbor...damn sight better than that bastard, Monty Barker and 'is rotten kids. 'e doesn't bother me. I know the words and the signs. Me grandfather Octavian taught me them, a long time ago, before I shipped over to fight the Jerries. But I look after 'im. It's best to be on 'is sweet side. 'e's much, much nastier than 'itler and Mussolini and all that lot, nastier than by 'arf, when you cross 'im. Stay on 'is sweet side...'e 's no lamb by any means...but 'e takes care of 'is own."
Eden flushed, aware that Whateley knew more than he had guessed. The teapot began to bubble and chuckle. The liquid sound reminded Eden of the horrible tentacle, the vast staring eye. He half-expected either to appear at the tiny window.
"Mister Whateley...can this...this thing get out?"
"Eh? Oh, no. No, no, no. Not through that tiny little pool, at least. Makes 'im touchy sometimes, I imagine, gets 'im good and barmy. That's why 'e laid into that Jerry like a drunk Irishman at a Gaelic wedding. But no, 'e can't get out. 'e's very far away. But 'e's damned clever, and very patient. 'e'll get out someday, I reckon, somewhere in the world. Then there'll be a Judgement day, but it'll be 'is judgement, and believe me, 'e'll reward the folks who 'elped 'im out, and 'e'll clout everybody else good and smart. Yes, sir. Doesn't go in for charity or forgiveness or any of that rot."
"What's it's name, sir? Does it have one?"
Old Whateley stroked his beard thoughtfully, pondering the boy's tentative question. "Oh, aye. 'e's got many names. Many, many names. The Arabs called him Shaitan. Some think 'e's the Leviathan of the Good Book. The Eskimo tribes of Greenland describe 'im as being a tornasuk, a great elder devil, while your South Sea Islanders refer to 'im as Tulu and Thu Thu. Many, many names. Now the folks in the know, the ones who wrote those books you see over there, they refered to 'im as Great Cthulhu. 'e's something of a big wig, so 'e gets the title, is 'ow it works."
"Is...is Great Cthulhu angry with us? Christopher and Robert and me?"
"Eh? Hmmm. 'e might be. Then again, maybe not. Unpredictable sort, 'e is...'e was mad at that Jerry, though. Gave 'im what for...
"Now there's the matter of your lesson, me lad. More a reminder, really, since I think you've already learned enough tonight."
The teapot was building to a steam. A thin, wavering unsteady whistle had begun to fill the room. Hadrian Whateley rose from his seat. Floorboards creaked. He stooped to retrieve an object from behind a pair of black galoshes. It was cylindrical and covered by a dirty rag. Whateley sat it down upon the table. Something sloshed within.
"This 'ere's a reminder, just to let you know enough to stay away from that nasty old knuckerhole, especially when Great Cthulhu's off 'is nut, right, lad?"
Hadrian Whateley removed the rag with a magician's flourish. It was a large jar containing a translucent, yellowish-brown fluid the color of old tea. Something floated within the fluid, drifting serenely. It was burned and scarred, as if by acid. Great rounded weals pocked its surface, and only a few strands of hair remained, floating like seaweed. One eye bulged madly in it socket. The other was missing entirely. The gap-toothed, blistered mouth was open in a frozen, timeless scream. The neck ended abruptly in tatters of flesh.
It was the head of Gunther Leckschiedt.
Eden screamed, and his voice was one with the shrill shriek of the copper teapot.